For his hardened and diehard supporters, Maada Bio could do no wrong.
There was a time when, on the campaign trail after making grand promises that speak to the heart of our development and peace shortcomings or issues, the people of Sierra Leone, especially Bio’s supporters, imbibed every word that came from him.
Whenever he made a promise to the nation and his supporters, they went unquestioned and absolutely accepted as a promise from God Almighty.
But time has changed, and the people that once believed unreservedly in whatever president Bio had come have come to believe that he has been economical with the truth all along.
His supporters said they had had enough and can no longer trust the nation’s chief executive.
They have decried how Mr Bio’s repeated promises to jail his predecessor Ernest Bai Koroma is progressing, with many saying they don’t see how it will be possible for the president to get rid of the one man he sees as an impediment to him enjoying his tenures as president without having to compete for the same spaces and attention.
Mr Koroma’s larger-than-life personality has been a bone of contention for the embattled president Bio who considers EBK as coping his glory, fame, respect, popularity; all of which the president is unwilling to share with anyone, least of all his arch nemesis from the main opposition.
Meanwhile, his supporters have said if Mr Bio is honest, he would confess that he will not be able to keep his promise to have EBK in a tight space, not now, not ever!
President Maada Bio’s erstwhile trusting supporters have said the lies he has told have destroyed their relationship with him, and have negatively impacted on the trust they once had for him.
Trust is the foundation of any relationship. Without trust there is no relationship; at best what you have is window dressing, not something one can write home about.
For long, Mr Bio has not been fulfilling his promises, and just when he had convinced us that he would get rid of President Koroma.
It however appears that this promise will also go the way of most of the promises he has made since 2018.
He assured us that his supporters and the nation on several occasions, actually he and the vice president to be precise did warn that if Dr Koroma fails to be a respectable citizen and stay out of active politics, they would have him jailed. From the look of things, presently we don’t see how this regime will accomplish jailing EBK.
The president’s supporters relayed that they believed that President Koroma’s shadow is too large for president Bio to shake, adding that Maada Bio has not been able to come from under EBK’s shadow which has rendered his popularity and continued respect as being under threat or imperilled.
The Sierra Leonean patriots said Mr Bio continued to warn EBK to stay out of active politics because his involvement puts Sierra Leone in the position of having two chiefs in a small town or village.
After all the warnings and threats to Dr Ernest Bai Koroma to quit active politics, even with the hope that EBK would leave the country after Bio’s term, we were hopeful that EBK’s reported involvement in the alleged November 26th, 2023 “attempted coup” to overthrow president Bio and his appearance in court would spell the end of Mr Bio having to compete with EBK for attention.
But, Dr Koroma’s international clout and his continued relevance to African democracy, his mediation efforts in missions to African and other nations in crisis mode have all added to the vitriol that the president continues to nurse for EBK. But with EBK gone to Nigeria despite the government’s initial refusal to release EBK to Nigeria, where does this leave Mr Bio and the VP’s promise to have Mr Koroma in a very tight place?
From all intents and purposes it is clear that for making and not being able to keep his promises to his supporters and the nation, Mr Bio has lost or imperilled his standing and the love and respect his supporters had for him.
With every broken or unfulfilled promise, we have a situation where the people lose respect for and trust in the promises coming from the nation’s chief executive.
Mr Bio should go back to the drawing board and start speaking the truth to us his supporters.
Mr Koroma has made Mr Bio’s tenure a living nightmare because he continues to be the one the international community continues to show unbridled love, respect and admiration for, which continues to irk Mr Bio. And the president is under a lot of pressure to start keeping his many promises.
He has made so many promises, yet we have not seen any progressive outcome from such grandstanding.
He has to start speaking the truth to his supporters, something we believe president Bio has never done. Instead, all he has been doing is giving us the run-around. There is no place under heaven where given the sanctity of the law and its procedures, EBK should feel threatened that he is under threat from losing his freedom and benefits from the government as a retired statesman. His supporters can no longer take the President’s words for granted adding that they can only do so now with a pinch of salt.
Meanwhile, speaking to other members and supporters of the ruling SLPP and APC, they are shocked this journo when they said Mr Bio’s supporters should know that he has never been clear with them and anyone else for that matter.
Mr Bio, they say, is known for a lot of things. However, one of them is not for his honesty, but rather for the opposite. He has the habit of throwing promises around not realising that a promise is a debt. He does not see promises as veiled debts that one has to settle.
Our leader has a history of breaking promises since coming back, like his promises to tackle lawlessness, indiscipline, corruption, financial leakages, lack of peace and national cohesion, low prices of goods and services, working with the opposition parties to strengthen the economy and so forth.
Here is the truth of the matter: EBK is beyond Bio’s reach; he is clean and has no skeleton in his closet. What Bio has not told the rest of his supporters is that EBK is not complicit and that all this is being done to embarrass him out of professional jealousy.
With EBK around, Bio feels like a failure because people keep comparing his regime with EBK’s government being much desired and outclassing the current government of Sierra Leone by a very long shot.
Where we are at presently is the result of jealousy and the hope that EBK’s arrest and jailing would have provoked his supporters to take to the streets in protest for which they would have been cut down like their fellow citizens that have died at the hands of the state security officers that were supposed to or paid to protect them.